Big plans for Sahara region
2005-05-31 12:17
Ouagadougou - Leaders from the 21-member Community of Sahel and Sahara states will gather here from Wednesday to make concrete progress towards African integration while dealing with the menace of famine and locusts that threaten many of the already instable nations.
"It's a summit with new goals; the time has come to turn CenSad into a real driver for development and integration," said Youssouf Ouedraogo, foreign minister for host Burkina Faso.
"We must also frame our organisation's goals better, developing projects that will help boost agricultural production while doing double duty in the battle against locusts," he added, in reference to the moderately successful cloud-seeding projects underway in the arid desert states.
Countries grouped under CenSad are among the world's poorest, with paltry public infrastructure, few economic assets and populations chronically threatened by hunger, disease and, most troubling, civil conflict that compounds both.
The hunger crisis in countries stretching across the bottom of the Sahel is particularly acute this year, following last year's devastating locust invasion, the worst in over a decade.
The United Nations has issued numerous appeals to alleviate the food shortage, the latest of which came last week, for massive Niger, where an estimated three million of the country's 11 million people risk serious malnutrition.
CenSad's last summit, in May of 2004, aimed to create a zone-wide water authority in an effort to cooperatively deal with the intractible problem of drought and water shortage that has parched the region and wizened the crops upon which 80% of the zone's 350 million people rely.
Finding some resolution for the political crises strafing CenSad members Sudan, Togo and Ivory Coast will also be on the agenda for the annual meeting of the zone, created in February 1998 at the impetus of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Security issues, arms and drug trafficking as well as the problem of illegal migration will also be addressed by the leaders from Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Senegal, Gambia, Djibouti, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, Togo, Benin, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast and Liberia.
The summit is to conclude with the admission of Ghana and Sierra Leone as attending members, and will also officially launch an economic and social council.